It is characteristic of saprophytic ergot cultures, that the water soluble alkaloids produced, such as ergometrins, clavine, and some peptide alkaloids, are more or less singularly diffused in the cell mass and liquid components. The prior art has dealt with this fact by utilizing different preparative methods for the isolation of the alkaloids from both or either of the components, after separating the cell mass from the culture filtrate (HU-PS No. 150,632; HU-PS No. 161,654; as well as HU-PS No. 150,631; DL-PS No. 41,967; OE-PS No. 250,770).
These methods take into account the special solubility characteristics of the desired alkaloids. Thus, in the Hungarian Application No. R I-440, the addition of in some instances considerable quantities of salts is used to isolate the water-soluble ergometrin. The process described in HU-PS No. 142,407, an adsorption on bentonite with a subsequent extraction of the adsorbate with aqueous alcohol, proved to be undesirable on account of substantial losses through isomerization (in this context, see also HU-PS No. 142,406).
It was therefore not considered worth investigating the development of an entrainment process for isolating the alkaloids from the culture suspension; a direct extraction from the suspension was one of the alternatives investigated, in DDR Pat. No. 12d/165,516. The development of emulsions and a tendency for the alkaloids to isomerize in dependence on the timing of the isolation procedure, however, diminished the practical value of this process.